Editorial | University of Kentucky takes on state scourge of cancer

University of Kentucky President Eli Capilouto calls it the "scourge of cancer" and rightly so.

Anyone who has suffered from the disease or watched a family member suffer, an ordeal that in Kentucky too often ends in death, understands the cruel nature of cancer and the devastation it inflicts.

Now Kentucky is fortunate indeed with the news that the UK's Markey Cancer Center has won the prestigious designation as the state's first National Cancer Institute-designated cancer center.

It is welcome news in a state with the nation's highest rate of cancer deaths and high rates of lung, colorectal and breast cancers.

The designation, won through several years of arduous investment, hiring and upgrades of programs and services at the UK center, puts it in distinguished company of 67 such centers nationwide including Harvard Medical School, the Mayo Clinic and Memorial Sloane-Kettering Cancer Center, according to The Courier-Journal's Laura Ungar.

For UK, it means expanded research dollars and recruitment of top researchers - a chance to join the major league when it comes to understanding and treating cancer.

For patients, it means access to the latest treatments and increased opportunities for clinical trials. It means finding cutting-edge cancer treatment here in Kentucky rather than traveling out of state to other top cancer centers.

In Louisville, patients will benefit through a partnership between UK and Norton HealthCare's Cancer Institute, the state's only NCI-designated Community Cancer Center and one of 21 in the nation. Norton's patients could have access to clinical trials and in most cases, be able to participate from Louisville.

But an equally important opportunity is expanding access to treatment and services that prevent or detect cancer. Too often, public health officials say, Kentuckians die from cancer because it is discovered too late and the disease far too advanced for effective treatment.

Markey Cancer Center director Dr. Mark Evers, who helped build the program to win NCI status, is well aware that reaching more people throughout the state, increasing education about cancer and expanding access to health care must be part of the mission as a national cancer center.

He said outreach and emphasis on access to care already is important at the Markey center and will be even more so as part of its role as a national cancer center. Dr. Evers also said the center hopes to expand efforts to treat patients throughout the region.

Of course, one reason people don't get health care is because they can't pay for it. In Kentucky, a poor state, about 640,000 people have no health insurance

The Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, promises huge benefits to Kentucky in that it will add more than 300,000 people to Medicaid, the government health plan for the poor and disabled. Another 300,000 or so will be able to find health coverage through the new Health Benefit Exchange.

This new access to coverage will mean better access to cancer care and prevention. Already too many Kentuckians forgo basic screening, such as colonoscopies or mammograms, because they can't afford them, or worse yet, have no access to primary health care with a physician or other health provider to advise them they should seek such care.

Gov. Steve Beshear, through executive orders, has taken full advantage of benefits of health care reform by accepting the Medicaid expansion it offers states and by creating the online exchange people can use to shop for health insurance starting Oct. 1.

Now the newly insured will have access to better cancer treatment at UK as health care reform takes hold in Kentucky.

The University of Louisville continues work toward designation as a national cancer and should be in a stronger position following the partnership it established earlier this year with KentuckyOne Health, designed to bring in significant investment and resources.

That would bring even greater benefits to the state where public health officials are committed to reducing the state's dismal cancer rankings.

As UK's Dr. Capilouto said, "We will no longer indulge the scourge of cancer in Kentucky."

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Editorial | University of Kentucky takes on state scourge of cancer

Kentucky is fortunate with the news that the UK?s Markey Cancer Center has won the prestigious designation as the state?s first National Cancer Institute-designated cancer center.